Jarsdel felt suddenly very faint. His legs buckled, and he sat down hard, groaning at the pain that now seemed to be everywhere at once. The gun felt heavy in his hand, so he rested it on a bent knee.
Stevens closed his eyes, and Jarsdel thought he might have passed out. Or died. But then, though it seemed to take great effort, he began to talk. “First movie I ever saw was Singin’ in the Rain. Father bought a print from a Frenchman…screened it on a bedsheet on our back patio…”
Stevens bunched his features, then gripped the spear with one hand. He pulled, but the shank didn’t budge. More fluid, red and brown, burbled around the wound. Stevens gasped, then let go. His skin was almost as white as his pendant now, his face covered in a sheen of sweat.
“Only had one projector,” he continued, “so every twenty minutes, the movie would stop, and Father would have to change the reels. Like being awakened from a beautiful dream…”
The sirens grew louder.
“Watched it every week for six months, until the projector broke. Still have the print somewhere…”
Jarsdel didn’t know where Stevens was going with all this, and anyway, the only thing he wanted now was to shut his eyes and not think about anything for a while. He felt something trickle down his wrist and was startled to see that a pool of blood the size of a dinner plate had formed beneath his hand.
“You can’t imagine,” said Stevens, “the love I had for that magical place in the movie. Promised one day I would go there…and when…finally arrived, saw the grand lady Hollywood was now just an old whore. But I felt her spirit. It’s still here, calling to those with the right ears. It calls from the Roosevelt Hotel…from the curves of Mulholland Drive and Sunset Boulevard…the Polo Lounge. Even those handprints in the cement. She’s still here.”
Jarsdel’s breathing slowed as the urge to sleep grew greater. Stevens seemed determined to explain something to him, something he felt was important, but Jarsdel didn’t have the strength or the desire to follow his meandering story any longer.
There was a bang and the tinkle of breaking glass and shouts, but the sounds were so very far away. The last thing he heard was Stevens’s strangely melodious voice. “Try holding onto a dream with both hands, Tully, and see if you don’t have to kill a few people along the way.”
Chapter 23
There were five new arrivals that night at Hollywood Presbyterian, all from the Cinema Legacy Museum. One went to the burn unit, two to ICU, another to orthopedic services, and one to the morgue. Detectives from LAPD’s Force Investigation Division were dispatched to speak to the survivors, but even the least injured among them, Oscar Morales, wouldn’t be available for several hours. The kick Brayden had delivered to his knee had damaged his meniscus replacement plate, and surgery was required to repair it.
Jarsdel experienced the first night in the hospital through a fog of pain and the drugs used to keep it at bay. It was impossible to know at any given time if he was dreaming or not, so he decided it was best to treat every encounter as if it were real. He answered questions when they were asked of him but otherwise didn’t speak for fear of saying something nonsensical or self-incriminating. Mostly, he just lay there, fading in and out of consciousness, stirring occasionally at the sound of hurrying feet and raised voices or the stick of a needle or the squeeze of a blood pressure cuff. But soon even these ceased to wake him, and he slept.
In the morning of the next day—or at least Jarsdel assumed it was morning—he woke to find his parents at his bedside. Both had been crying. Robert clutched a tissue, and the tip of Darius’s nose was red—something that only happened when he was upset. At first, Jarsdel pretended he didn’t see them and closed his eyes again. He didn’t know what to say, how to justify his near death to these people. But Robert must have seen a flicker of movement.
“Tully? Tully, are you awake?”
Jarsdel took a deep breath and opened his eyes.
“Hey.”
“Oh God, Tully.” He grabbed his hand, mashing the damp tissue against his fingers. Darius, not wanting to push his husband out of the way but still needing contact with his son, grasped Jarsdel’s foot.
“I’m fine, guys.”
Darius made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Yeah, you’re fine. Nearly got killed by a maniac.”
“Oh, Tully, Tully,” Robert said. “Your dear sweet arm. And your hair.”
“It would’ve destroyed us, Son. Just destroyed us,” said Darius.
“I’m really tired, guys. I feel funny.”
“You need the nurse?” Robert asked, immediately alarmed.
Jarsdel shook his head and immediately regretted it. A wave of dizziness rolled over him, and he grimaced.
“Nurse! Or a doctor? Doctor!”
“I’m fine, Dad, please.”
“Are you sure?”
A man in an immaculate white coat appeared at the foot of his bed. The cursive stitching on his breast identified him as Jonathan Gray, MD.
“How’re we doing?”
“I keep telling them I’m fine.”
The doctor nodded but checked Jarsdel’s vitals and fluids before departing.
“Please don’t call the doctor again.”
Robert squeezed his hand. “We love you. Oh, we love you so much.”
“I love you too.”
“We want you to stay with us after you get out of here. Just until you get better.”
“Okay.”
Robert squeezed his hand again. “The docs say your arm doesn’t have any tendon damage. You should have eighty-percent recovery in two weeks. Jesus God, you got so lucky.”
“Could’ve been bad, Tully. Very bad,” said Darius.
“Well, his head, Dary. The head is not good. It’s not good.”
“No. No, it isn’t.”
Jarsdel reached up a tentative hand and began touching his face. “Why? What’s wrong with my head?”
“Oh, Son,” said Robert. “When that man, that”—he lowered his voice—“that son of a bitch attacked you, he cut a nerve in your head.”
“Occipital nerve,” offered Darius.
“Your occipital nerve, yes. The doctors say you could get a neuroma and then terrible headaches. For the rest of your life.” He sniffled and wiped his eyes. “That bastard. I hope he’s suffering. I know it’s not right to say that, but it’s how I feel.”
Jarsdel blinked. “He’s alive? Stevens?”
“Is that his name? Yes, he’s alive. The police are guarding him.”
“He’s here?”
Darius nodded. “I’d like to go over there and put a pillow over his face. They’re saying they don’t even know how many people he killed. He’s a monster.”
“I saw people who looked like government agents too,” said Robert. “You could tell by their suits and by the way they interacted with everyone. They just felt different from regular police.”
If that were true, it probably had to do with some of the things Stevens had told him he’d done during the Bosnian War. That would spell federal involvement, maybe deportation to Montenegro or The Hague for trial. He speculated on what that would mean for the Grant Wolin case, then decided that at least for the moment, he didn’t really care. Stevens was caught; that was what mattered.
I’m here, to be among those who renew the world.
And he supposed that was true, though the cost had been nearly unbearable. “Is Aleena okay?”
“Who’s that?” asked Darius.
“Must be the young woman he came in with,” said Robert. “They told me he saved someone’s life.”
“I want to see her,” said Jarsdel.
“Do you know her? Other than from this terrible thing?”
“Where are my glasses?” He started to get up, but Robert put a hand on his chest.
“Shh, it’
s okay. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“Please tell them to let me see her.”
“We will.”
“Please.”
“We will, Tully.”
Reluctantly, he lay back down.
“Your baba and I asked about the best way for you to leave the police. They said you could get something like a disability thing—I suppose it’s like an honorable discharge from the army—and you’ll get paid good money.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, sweetie?”
“Why would you ask them that?”
“You should be compensated for what you went through. You can retire for disability reasons, and you still have your whole life ahead of you to pursue something else.”
Jarsdel didn’t speak for a while.
His parents exchanged a look, then Darius spoke. “You’re not thinking of staying, are you?”
“Oh, Tully,” said Robert, “you have such an extraordinary, loving, and lovely mind. You’re built for better things than this.”
“It’s all taken care of,” said Darius. “Too late for the job at CSUN, but there’s a TA position open under Professor Bodman. You’d have to grade undergrad papers again, but it’d get you right back on track with your doctorate. He’d love to have you. Told me so.”
“And with the money you’d be getting from the police, you’d be in really good shape.”
“I’m very tired,” said Jarsdel. “I’d like to go back to sleep for a little while.”
“Did we upset you?” asked Robert.
“No, just please. Please let me get some sleep.”
Darius put a hand on Robert’s shoulder. “He’s okay. Let’s let him rest.” Then he turned to his son. “Let us take care of you. Let us make everything right.”
* * *
On the day Tully Jarsdel graduated from the police academy, one of his instructors had advised the class not to smile in their police ID photos.
“Same picture they use on the news if you shoot someone. Imagine—you just killed a guy. You got an FID team looking into your case, see if it was a good shooting or not, and citizens too are questioning whether what you did was right. You also, probably. Doin’ some soul-searching. And now every time you’re on TV, you’re this grinning asshole. Last thing you want.”
Tully had followed the advice and was glad for it. When his story made the front page of the Los Angeles Times, the photograph that accompanied it showed a bespectacled man with full, boyish cheeks, a prominent Adam’s apple, and a haircut that wouldn’t have been out of place on an aide in the Johnson administration. No smile, though. A smile would have been absurd, even profane, next to the headline “A Killer’s Dungeon of Horror.”
Morales had brought the paper, and Jarsdel now set it on the tray beside that morning’s inedible omelet. “Thanks,” he said to his partner. “I’ll read it later.”
“Most of it’s bullshit and speculation,” said Morales, who was still wheelchair-bound after his surgery. “But it makes you look good.”
“Yeah? You’re right. That would be bullshit, considering I nearly got myself and two other people killed.”
“You got the bad guy. Stuck a fuckin’ spear in his guts. Don’t think the state’s gonna be able to top that, especially now the Green Room’s outta order.”
“How’d you find me that night, Oscar? Nobody can tell me.”
Jarsdel had been moved from ICU to a private room in the transitional care unit, and they had the place to themselves. Still, Morales wheeled closer, as if he were about to share a deep secret.
“I get visions sometime. Like flashes of divine inspiration.”
“Huh. That’s really something.”
“Yeah. Gonna open my own place on the boulevard. Do readings and shit. Make more than I do as a cop.”
“Okay. Seriously, though, how?”
Morales shrugged. “You didn’t show up. Didn’t answer my text about the parking or anything. I called, and you didn’t pick up. Just wasn’t like you, not like the professor we all know and love. Thought maybe you were in an accident or something. So I had the station check the GPS tracker on your phone, which didn’t move. Right outside your complex, and it just blinked and blinked. Went to go see what’s up—which was dangerous as shit, by the way, four beers in and with the goddamned rain. Meanwhile, I actually get WeHo sheriffs to do a welfare check on your apartment. Keys in the door. Car still there. Then I find your phone in some lantana bushes and listen to that little message you were gonna send me. Got to the museum, saw the van, and the back door to the place was open, so I went in. Called for backup when I heard the girl screaming. Everything else you know.”
“Thank you, Oscar. For everything.”
“How’s the arm?”
“It’s okay. Could’ve been a lot worse.”
“That’s our motto, man.”
The two men were quiet, and Morales pretended to find the art on the wall interesting while Jarsdel stared at the blank television set.
“You gonna come back, right?” his partner finally asked.
“I don’t know.” He expected Morales to protest, to tell him he was a coward for thinking about quitting, but instead, the older detective gave a small nod.
“You do what you need to do,” he said and wheeled out of the room.
* * *
Aleena had been placed in a specialty unit a floor down from Jarsdel’s own, but before going there, he’d stopped in the lobby gift shop and picked up a dozen roses. Because of his arm, he had to depend on a nurse to guide his wheelchair. On the way back up the elevator, she’d asked about the flowers.
“For my girlfriend.”
“That’s sweet. I’m sure she’ll love them.”
The door to Aleena’s room was open, and Jarsdel could see her lying in bed. She wasn’t asleep and seemed to just be staring down at her hands, which were wrapped in bandages. Jarsdel was glad to see the bed next to hers was unoccupied.
“Hello,” said the nurse, knocking on the doorjamb.
Aleena looked over at them, then quickly again at her hands.
“Someone’s here to see you.” The nurse pushed Jarsdel into the room. “I’ll let you two talk. Just have her ring the call button when you’re through.” She left the two of them alone.
Jarsdel was too far away from the bed to hand Aleena the flowers, which she couldn’t take anyway. He should’ve thought of that. It looked as if she were wearing giant white oven mitts. By using just his left arm, he was able to successfully wheel toward her side table and set the roses there.
“Hey,” he said. “Hope it’s okay I’m here.”
When she didn’t answer, he went on. “I missed you. You’re all I think about in here. And I wanted you to know I’m gonna leave the department. Take my disability and go back to academics.”
Aleena’s gaze remained fixed on her hands, which lay one atop the other in her lap. When she spoke, her voice was almost unrecognizable. There was no life in it, none of the vivacity that colored her normal speech. “Please go.”
“What?”
Aleena began to weep, and she mashed furiously at the tears with her bandages.
He wasn’t sure what to do. He wanted to go to her, to hold her, and began to get out of his chair when she spoke again.
“No. Just go.”
“Aleena. I’m trying to tell you I’m gonna give it up. It’s not worth it. I just want to be with you.”
She took a shaky breath and did her best to speak, though her voice hitched and trembled. “I hear you… I…just…can’t look at you.”
It was as if he’d been struck. “But we can get past this. We can get past it.”
“No…”
“Don’t let this ruin it for us. I’ll help you. We’ll do it together.”
“I can’
t—”
“Aleena.”
She screwed her eyes shut, lifted her hands, and brought them down hard on her thighs. She spoke rapidly now, in a single unbroken stream. “No, please just go. I can’t look at you. I can’t be around anything that reminds me of that day. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Once the words were out, she lost what little control she had left. She covered her face and gave in to harsh, wracking sobs.
Jarsdel opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came to him. Only her name, so that’s what he said. “Aleena.”
She didn’t move, didn’t respond. Just continued to cry, her giant, oven-mitt hands shaking up and down in front of her face.
Jarsdel turned and saw the nurse had returned. She was standing in the doorway now, watching the scene, and gave him a reproving look. “I think it’s time to go,” she said, stepping forward and taking his chair.
Jarsdel gave no reply.
He thought about what it must have been like inside the bull. The darkness, the unbearable pain, the hopelessness of escape. And his the first face she’d seen when she was let out.
Before he was rolled out of the room, Jarsdel gave the woman he loved a final glance and silently wished her well.
Two Months Later
Derek Bonda, known to some on the LAPD as the Dog Catcher, pulled off the I-5 freeway in the direction of Silver Lake. His silver ’99 Daewoo Nubira, which was due for a smog check he feared it wouldn’t pass, took the turn onto Glendale Boulevard followed by a cloud of blue exhaust smoke. Bonda considered postponing his day’s activities in case his car attracted the attention of a cop, then decided he’d rather take the risk. “Fortune favors the bold,” someone had once said. He liked that. He also liked, “Pain is temporary, glory is forever.” Translated to his current situation, it meant that the agony of the dog might only be a passing thing, but the suffering caused by its death would haunt its owners forever. That was good. That, in fact, was just what he wanted.
Bonda lived in Toluca Lake, and his ballroom dance studio was in Burbank, so he didn’t spend much time in this part of town. Still, he knew the area well enough, had even reconned his destination weeks earlier to make sure the property suited his needs. He’d use Google Maps to direct him the last little bit of his drive; it was confusing up in those winding residential streets between Sunset and Riverside. He headed down Hyperion, passing a few upscale restaurants, a cheese shop, a Gelson’s, and a pizzeria he remembered being pretty decent. He’d stop there afterward, he decided. These errands always seemed to leave him hungry.
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